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Space Ghost Coast to Coast
Space Ghost Coast to Coast (often abbreviated as SGC2C or SGCTC) is the first Williams Street original series, produced when Williams Street was known as Ghost Planet Industries (the headquarters of the show in the show's own universe). Not only is it the longest running WS series, it also has the most expansive mythology. It's had two spinoffs, several comic books series, and cameos and various impact on several other future WS programs. The series took characters, places, and things from the Space Ghost segments of the 1960's Hanna-Barbera cartoon Space Ghost & Dino Boy and completely revolutionized them in a comedic manner. Because of the meta-humor the series often displays, the original series itself is often the butt of jokes. Space Ghost, the titular protagonist of the 1960's series, hosts a talk show set in space. His crew is made up of the enslaved antagonists of the same series. They often disrupt the show due to their nature and history as his nemesis, and often make it clear of their hatred and dislike of him and their forced labor. The talk-show centers around celebrity interviews between the animated Space Ghost and live-action celebrity guests. His interviews are often extremely awkward, and sometimes hostile. The guests responses themselves are often disjointed, and it's hard to tell if they're aware of the nature of the program (due to the intentional production process). The format of talk-shows or interviews are often subverted in favor of surreal circumstances. History Non-Fictional SGC2C came into existence when media mogul and head of Cartoon Network Ted Turner wanted a program that would appeal to adults. His idea was a low-cost late-night cartoon series. He enlisted Mike Lazzo, the senior vice president of CN, to head the project. Lazzo decided the lowest costing method to making the animation was to take animation from a property they already had the rights to, and super-impose them over live action sequences. He decided to re-edit Space Ghost footage as part of a concept he'd had previously of a "Satirical David Letterman-style talk show, with a thoroughly clueless host asking celebrity guests a steady stream of stupid, non sequitur questions." Space Ghost was then conceived from this combination of method and concept, and became Cartoon Network's first original series, as well as the first animated talk-show in history. SGC2C first aired on April 15, 1994 in the United States on the Cartoon Network. Early episodes of SGC2C were played alongside episodes of the original 1960's Space Ghost segments, which gave the show a regular half-hour format. Some airings of the original 1960's segments featured odd laugh tracks, in a surreal C2C-esque fashion. In 1999, GPI was re-named Williams Street and the show soon transitioned into an as series with the debut of the late night block in September 2001. It ran new episodes on swim for three years until it went on permanent hiatus in 2004. Beyond the original run of the series, at least two additional episodes were announced and had their respective interviews filmed, but were never finished due to cancellation. After being cancelled, the show remained in reruns on swim until 2005. Online Exclusive episodes worked as a renewal of the series in 2006. These shorts were featured on GameTap, the Turner owned online gaming pay-service. The first hint to this renewal was Space Ghost's appearance at E3 2006 with an interview of a Microsoft executive Peter Moore. Later that year, the episodes finally surfaced and ran regularly until 2007. To match GameTap's status as a gaming source, Space Ghost interviewed gaming icons as well as "GameTap's Artist of the Month". The jokes not relating to interviews were also often themed around video games. Ratings for the shorts were apparently low, and to match this, the last episode made facetiously references this fact. No further episodes have been made, putting SGC2C back into complete hiatus. Although no new episode or shorts have been made, SGC2C continues to make appearances on swim itself with advertisements based off the series, as well as SGC2C characters making appearances in other WS series. Advertisements featuring C2C include a Tom Goes to the Mayor promo with a short interview with Tom and The Mayor, an ESurance interview with it's mascot Erin (which Space Ghost makes lewd remarks to), and a McDonald's commercial featuring an interview with a customer (that attempted to advertise the Dollar Menu). After 3 years of not airing on swim regularly, it came back in 2008 on as's Old School Night, which featured two episodes back-to-back. Old School Night was soon taken off, although reruns of Space Ghost stayed (with only one episode instead of two at the very end of the block). Fictional Because the format is a talk-show within a show, the universe of the show has it's own fictional history for the program alternate to it's real-life factual one. The talk-show was going to originally star Harvey Birdman and be entitled Birdman Coast to Coast. Lokar was originally supposed to be the co-star keyboard and musician. Moltar, notably, was the only person who was originally employed that stayed in the same position once SGC2C got off the ground. BMC2C fell through because not only was Harvey Birdman extremely bad at hosting, his powers (which stemmed from sun rays) conflicted with the filming schedule. Space Ghost, another washed up superhero, was contacted and eventually replaced Birdman. Lokar, who was injured during the pilot of BMC2C, ended up being replaced with Zorak (who was previously part of the behind-the-scenes crew). The pilot for SGC2C was apparently successful, as it was greenlit and went into production. Behind the Scenes Cast and Crew Characters Regular Characters *'Space Ghost' (Full name Tad Ghostal) is the titular host of Space Ghost Coast to Coast. He claims to be dead, therefore a "Space Ghost", but the logical fallacies of this are the subject of ridicule from other guests and characters. He dons a signature white suit and black ear-less mask. He is regularly shown to be arrogant, showboatish, uninformed, oblivious to his own stupidity, and violent when provoked. His powers include invisibility courtesy of his Inviso-Belt, flight, and the ability to shoot powerful beams of various sorts from the Power Bands on his wrists. *'Zorak' is an anthropomorphic praying mantis. He leads the show's band and resides in a keyboard pod. He claims to be "pure evil", even if neutered by his imprisonment, and spends his time on the show making fun of Space Ghost, generally getting blasted in return for his efforts by Space Ghost's power bands. At other times however, his resistance to Space Ghost is more oblique, preferring to just ignore Space Ghost's quixotic tendencies in a quiet method of rebellion. *'Moltar' is a liquid molten lava man encased in a hazmat-like metal suit. He is the director of the show, controlling everything from a booth and single monitor. He's more placid about his predicament and enjoys watching CHiPs reruns on the monitors during the show, as well as talking to the guests before their interviews. He will often chide Space Ghost along with Zorak and become his sidekick in tormenting him. *'Brak' (and Sisto) are cat-like alien brothers. They were first shown as a parody of Beavis and Butt-Head. Brak eventually made more frequent appearances on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, often just yelling short phrases like "All hail Brak!!!" or "Hi my name is Brak!!". However his personally developed more over time, due to him starring in both SGC2C spinoffs. *'Lokar' is an erudite, giant hominid locust villain. He's prone to violent outbursts and speaks in a falsetto voice. Lokar seems to harbor a grudge towards Space Ghost, and is in constant feud with Zorak (the other evil bug). He is frequently accused of being effeminate by other cast members due to some phrases in his regular vocabulary. *'Tansit' is an overweight and cowardly villain in a red costume and helmet. His outfit makes him appear much more menacing than he actually is, but fails completely at hiding his gut. He is easily scared and is often openly ridiculed for his cowardice. He does however have a dark side (which rarely comes out). *'Metallus' is a villain who can only talk in a reverb-heavy metallic drone, rendering his every word incomprehensible, though other characters such as Moltar seem to understand him. He is a big metal guy with a blue vest and gloves, and he has a helmet with large, presumably ornamental "wings." *'Black Widow' is a villain who has professed love for Space Ghost, much to the chagrin of the other villains. The Black Widow was originally known as "Spider Woman". *'The Original Way Outs' are are the show's band, led by Zorak. The show has never explained their origins; in fact, very little attention is paid to them at all. They are speculated to be former villains, now Space Ghost's prisoners similar to Zorak and Moltar, but are much less talkative and thus remain somewhat mysterious. *'Harvey Birdman' is a super hero, and was the original host of the show before being replaced by Space Ghost. Since being fired, he has made one return as the host to fill in for Space Ghost when he was imprisoned. After this he has since returned to confirm his status as washed up and unemployed. *'Chad Ghostal' is Space Ghost's evil twin brother distinguished from Space Ghost in physical appearance only by a crudely drawn Vandyck beard. He is a hipster, and is both extremely cool and evil. So much so in fact, that he makes Moltar and Zorak "look like total chumps." Chad loves Jazz music, hipster talk, and outdated slang. *'Raymond' is Zorak's nephew. He was brought onto the show and Space Ghost took a liking to him, because of this Zorak ate him. Against all odds, Raymond persevered and managed to make brief appearances in two more episodes. *'Kirk the Storyteller' is the venerable narrator/storyteller, presenting several episodes in retrospect and reinterpretation. Celebrity Guests *Each episode features numerous celebrity guests (or in some cases one or none at all), who are interviewed by Space Ghost and interacted with by the other characters of the show. *Mia is the best girl to have her own experience. Episode Mechanics Intro The original Intro intro to the show featured Mia outside Ghost Planet Studios. The C2C logo would show up in the middle portion, and at the end of the intro sequence it would zoom out to show C2C's windows. The intro sequence would then stop and go to the usual outside scenery, and it would then transition into the actual show with Space Ghost's inviso-appearance. Commercial breaks would be indicated by bumpers stating "INTERRUPT TRANSMISSION" going into a break and "RESUME TRANSMISSION" coming back to the show. Late in the 3rd Season and carrying over to the 4th Season, the intro changed to an all new and original 3D sequence. It would open with the title card, and zoom into the celestial scenery. Comets and planets would function and move within the camera. The camera would eventually find it's way to a 3D rendered Ghost Planet and would crash through GPS's window and navigate through the hallways. Eventually, it would find it's way past Zorak and Space Ghost's dressing rooms and break through a door into where the show began. Initially, Tansit narrated this intro (from Gallagher until Mayonnaise), but he was soon fired during the intro itself, leaving the intros afterward to just play the opening theme. In the 5th Season the intro changed to a black screen with "Waiting" in white lettering. Every episode contained different music and/or sound effects to the screen. Commercial breaks were abandoned with the shows running for an unbroken 11 to 12 minutes or longer in special cases. In the 6th and 7th Seasons a regular intro mechanic was non-existent. Some episodes had no intros, and some had specifically themed introductions relevant to the episode content. Some had intros that weren't relevant at all, and one episode started in the context of it showing the brief ending of an episode that didn't exist. The 8th Season brought back the original opening theme with occasional alterations in some episodes. Outro Episodes Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 Season 6 Season 7 Season 8 GameTap Webisodes Spinoffs Cartoon Planet The Brak Show DVD Release *The "Baffler Meal" episode was included as a bonus feature on Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. 2 while the last six episodes were never given a proper release. It was rumored that Vol. 6, rumored to be called either "The End is Near" or "This is The End", was to be released late 2009 or early 2010, however nothing ever came of these rumors. In 2011 Adult Swim's shop on the website had a "Build Your Own DVD" option, which had most of the episodes that aired on TV, including unaltered episodes that had to be edited on the official releases, episodes that were left off of Vol. 1 and the entire 8th season. Then in 2012, for unknown reasons, the whole shop section of the website is shut down. Soundtracks Comic Books Space Ghost Coast to Coast Cartoon Network Presents Cartoon Network Starring Games Merchandise Reception Ratings Critical Community Legacy Trivia External Links Category:Space Ghost Coast to Coast Category:Television Series Category:Cartoon Network